March 2018

2018 started with the good news. The World Bank’s Global Economic Prospects and the IMF’s World Economic Outlook both show that the global economy is in a recovery. Furthermore, it is expected that the upturn is broad-based as the growth is increasing in more than half of the world economies. Global Economic Prospects report that in advanced economies, growth in 2017 is estimated to have rebounded to 2.3 percent while emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) were projected to have higher-than-expected growth of 4.3 percent. Overall, global growth is projected to edge up to 3.1 percent in 2018.

Over the last decade debt managers, like the central bankers, fiscal policy managers and regulators, had to deal with the global financial crisis. During this period, while debt levels were increasing in many countries, thanks to the unconventional monetary policies, interest rates went down, maturities lengthen up to 100 years, and portfolio capital flows moved across markets. In the end, those were very unusual times. Now the question is: Is this the end of the global crisis? Are we back to the “normal” times?